Wenger has plenty to ponder

It was difficult to remember Arsene Wenger as downcast. Or as quietly livid. There was no refereeing injustice to rail at; no wholesale injury problems to offer in mitigation, writes David Hytner.

Arsene Wenger can normally be relied upon to find some tract of moral high ground in defeat, the reason why his sleek Arsenal machine has been bullied off the road. The true measure of his despair as he left west London on the night of August 23 was that he had nowhere to turn but inwards.

"I don't think Fulham were especially physical, I think they played well," said the Arsenal manager. "Their midfield has done very well. They stopped us from playing and we didn't have enough creativity to get around them. We are not used to that. We had over 60 minutes to come back and we couldn't do it. In fairness, in these minutes, we didn't create a lot. Was that down to Fulham's qualities or down to the fact that we are not good enough? I don't know. The future will tell us that."

It was difficult to remember Wenger as downcast. Or as quietly livid. There was no refereeing injustice to rail at; no wholesale injury problems to offer in mitigation. Only Cesc Fabregas and Tomas Rosicky were missing from what would be his strongest line-up.

As for the high ground, Arsenal had no claim on that either after Denilson chose to return the ball to Fulham, who had kicked it out when Bacary Sagna was down injured in the 30th minute, with a precision 40-yard pass that penned them in by their corner flag. The midfielder then waved his team-mates forward to pressurise the throw-in. Wenger's comment on the eve of the Premier League season - that promises made in church on a Sunday can be forgotten by the following Saturday - took on a particular resonance.

The Frenchman's frustration was rooted in his players' lack of composure in the final third as they chased the game, how they "chose too many times individual solutions when the collective solution was there." His fury, though, had already been stoked by the goal that he had seen his team concede.

William Gallas came in for plenty of criticism last season, mainly for his abrasive style of captaincy, but Wenger also singled him out for his absence of "defensive authority" in the crucial 2-1 defeat at Chelsea. On that day back in March, Arsenal showed their vulnerability to high balls but here it was a corner whipped in low by Jimmy Bullard that led to Gallas' inexplicable lapse. Having initially tracked the outstanding Brede Hangeland, he stopped and as Seol Ki-Hyeon tussled with Denilson and the goalkeeper Manuel Almunia, Hangeland stretched out a long leg to stab home unchallenged.

"The kind of mistake we made on the corner is not excusable," said Wenger. "You can be beaten on the ball in the air by somebody who jumps higher than you but you cannot concede a goal in the middle of the goal, on the six-yard line. That's where I feel we were guilty."

Gallas was offered little reassurance by his central defensive partner Kolo Toure, who is still not match fit after his bout of malaria - "You can see that clearly," admitted Wenger - while it was startling to note just how untroubled Mark Schwarzer was in the Fulham goal. Roy Hodgson, the Fulham manager, said that the four minutes of injury-time "seemed like a lifetime" but Arsenal, who finished with Gallas as an auxiliary centre-forward, could have played all night and not found the net.

Fulham squeezed up defensively to press the ball, and all over the pitch they refused to allow their opponents time or space. Theirs, however, was no mere triumph of organisation and hard work. Hodgson's team escaped relegation last season by remaining true to his passing principles and for 70 minutes here until they were tired, they moved the ball attractively. Their defeat at Hull City on the opening weekend seemed to be an aberration.

"The result was more down to us than Arsenal, especially in the firsthalf," said Bullard. "That's the best we've played for a long, long time."

While Wenger has been criticised for keeping his chequebook closed for much of the summer, Hodgson has signed 11 players, six of whom appeared against Arsenal, with two more as unused substitutes. Andy Johnson, the most expensive of them all, is expected to have recovered from his thigh strain to make his debut against Bolton Wanderers next month, after the break for the international fixtures.

Fulham's exuberance was epitomised by the full-back John Pantsil, newly arrived from West Ham United, who staged an extraordinary one-man lap of honour to mark his victorious home debut. The influx of new faces has energised the dressing room, although Pantsil may face a three-match suspension if the Football Association decides to take retrospective action for his studs-up tackle on Emmanuel Eboue.

Wenger, meanwhile, was again forced to defend himself against the accusation that his squad was too thin.

"When you lose a game, it is not always the solution to buy," he said, after naming a substitutes' bench with a tender average age of 19.4 years. "If we had played, with the team we had, at our best, I say `no', we don't lack depth. The result is a setback but maybe other teams will lose here as well."

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008THE RESULTSAugust 24:

Manchester City 3 (Sturridge 65, Elano 70 & 76) bt West Ham 0. Half-time: 0-0; Wigan 0 lost to Chelsea 1 (Deco 4). Half-time: 0-1.

August 23:

Blackburn 1 (Roberts 38) drew with Hull 1 (Garcia 40). Halftime: 1-1; Fulham 1 (Hangeland 21) bt Arsenal 0. Half-time: 1-0; Liverpool 2 (Pogatetz o.g. 86, Gerrard 90+4) bt Middlesbrough 1 (Mido 70). Half-time: 0-0; Newcastle 1 (Owen 71) bt Bolton 0. Half-time: 0-0; Stoke 3 (Lawrence pen-30, Fuller 80, Sidibe 90+4) bt Aston Villa 2 (Carew 63, Laursen 84). Half-time: 1-0; Tottenham 1 (Jenas 73) lost to Sunderland 2 (Richardson 55, Cisse 83). Half-time: 0-0; West Brom 1 (Bednar pen-89) lost to Everton 2 (Osman 65, Yakubu 76). Half-time: 0-0.